


A Study in Reasonable Assumptions

by Kay (sincere)



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Frustrating Conversationalists, Gen, Philosophy, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3071630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sincere/pseuds/Kay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhyme manages to coerce Neku into responding to one of Joshua's annoying text messages. Joshua immediately makes him regret it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in Reasonable Assumptions

Contains bickering and philosophical questions. Also Joshua being Joshua. I want to write more Neku and Rhyme... Written to the [](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**fic_promptly**](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/) prompt, "Neku+Joshua, [TELEPHONE](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/130735.html?thread=6113967#cmt6113967), n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance."

 

 **.a study in reasonable assumptions.**  
His phone chimed in his pocket, and Neku pulled it out to check who had sent him a text. He put the phone back in his pocket.

Rhyme lifted her eyebrows. "Who was it?" she asked.

"Joshua," he said dismissively. "Let's go on to the next problem. If the coefficient is--"

"Shouldn't you respond to him? My homework can wait."

They were arranged on the sofa in Neku's apartment, with Rhyme's legs folded so that she could prop her feet up against the table. Under her baggy pants and steel-toed boots Neku had been amused to discover that she was wearing pink socks with yellow punctuation marks on them.

Neku rolled his eyes. "He thinks he owns my time, even when I'm avoiding him. He's always sending me these obnoxious questions just to bother me."

Again he prepared to return to helping her with her homework, but Rhyme was frowning, distracted. "What if he really wants to know the answer?"

"They're not questions that have an answer. They're -- _theoretical_ questions. Stuff like, _Is honor important in the modern era?_ Philosophical gibberish."

"Then maybe he wants your input to help him make a decision. It might still be something important." Her fingers curled around the edge of her notebook, propped up against her bent legs. "You know who he is and what he does. It's possible that a question like that really does have an application for Joshua."

Perhaps because he'd had to field dozens of questions like this over time -- his chat history for Joshua was like a crash course in Cynicism 101 -- he hadn't considered that the questions might have any significance other than harassment. It was possible that Joshua had been trying to decide what to do about a Player in the Reaper's Game, measuring his actions and his worth. That might mean that talking it out could make the difference between someone being erased or resurrected.

Neku rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe. But if I answer, it'll just encourage him."

"What does it say?"

She could be just as obstinate as her brother sometimes. But she managed to sound more reasonable than Beat did, which made Neku feel like the one who was being obstinate. He sighed and dug out his phone again to read aloud, " _Does omniscience contradict free will?_ "

Rhyme paused. "I'm not sure what the practical application of that would be. Joshua isn't omniscient, right?"

"Wouldn't he know my answer if he was?" Neku grumbled. The idea of Joshua being omniscient on top of clairvoyant and psychic and whatever else he already was left a bad taste in his mouth.

"You're the one who said that he only asked the questions to bother you." She bit the cap of her pen thoughtfully. "...But there was really no reason to run the Game for Shibuya if he already knew everything that would happen after that, so he can't be omniscient."

That was a completely accurate point, and it got him thinking about Joshua's question. The answer to it came to him naturally. He considered going back to ignoring the text, but now that he had the answer he kind of wanted to say it.

" _Someone omniscient would already know a person well enough to know what they would choose to do with their free will. It's still free will,_ " he said out loud while he typed.

"That's a good answer," Rhyme said, smiling at him.

Neku sent the message, and even though he knew that it would only encourage Joshua, he felt pretty good about his response. "Okay, let's talk about coefficients." He leaned over to get a closer look at her notebook.

They had barely gotten further into the problem than that before his phone rang.

"Crap, he is _annoying_ ," Neku said, exasperated.

"You may as well get it." Rhyme laughed. "He'll just keep calling."

Neku gave her a sour look. "Sure, laugh because he's not doing it to you."

In spite of his better judgment, he answered the phone. Without so much as a greeting and before he could speak a word, Joshua's voice was saying disagreeably, "You're not thinking big enough, Neku. You're assuming that someone's decision is set in stone."

"Isn't that the same assumption you're making when you ask me if an omniscient being means our decisions are predetermined?" Neku asked tightly.

"Did I say anything like that? It's certainly not a _reasonable_ assumption to make."

Neku rubbed his forehead with one hand. "I only answered the question because Rhyme wanted me to, and I only picked up the phone because Rhyme wanted me to," he informed Joshua.

Joshua ignored these comments, other than to say, "Rhyme's there? Say hello to her for me." Then he continued, "There are dozens of potential paths for every choice we make. If you flip a coin to see what you have for dinner, there's a path where you got tails and a path where you got heads. There's also a path where you decide not to flip a coin. And a path where you decide not to have dinner at all."

"I would happily starve if it meant not having this conversation," Neku told him before his brain caught up to his mouth. "Wait -- doesn't that mean that there _can't_ be a contradiction between omniscience and free will? If every possible path exists, someone knowing all of them has nothing to do with your decision."

"Yes, I think so too," Joshua said thoughtfully, as if Neku had just made a good point instead of a protest against whatever madness had prompted Joshua to criticize him in the first place.

"Well, that's what I _said_."

"Yes, but as _I_ said, you weren't thinking big enough."

He pulled the phone away from his ear. "Do you see what I put up with?" he asked Rhyme in an undertone.

She grimaced apologetically to acknowledge her part in his personal hell, but she still looked like she was having too much fun for his tastes.

He took a breath and made sure to keep his voice level and steady for his next question, directed into the phone. "So you called to tell me that you thought I was right... but not right enough?"

"That's the same as being wrong, dear," Joshua told him, his voice as sweet as sugar.

"This is why we don't hang out more," Neku accused him, and ended the call.


End file.
